


Supreme Nothing

by digitalpanic



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 11:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21475159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalpanic/pseuds/digitalpanic
Summary: Robbie's father finally puts his foot down and tells him that he can't bring Rex to school anymore. Trina decides to put on a many-person one-woman show, that's sure to revitalize the genre! Robbie is upset about both these things, separate from each other, but then Tori decides they're connected and maybe they are connected, actually, but not in the way that anyone expects them to be.
Relationships: Beck Oliver/Robbie Shapiro
Comments: 17
Kudos: 130





	Supreme Nothing

Robbie sits down at the lunch table, interrupting the ongoing conversation by opening with, “Look, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a ventriloquist!”

The table goes silent.

Jade is the first one to respond. “I would definitely argue that if your goal is ‘ventriloquist,’ you need to seriously rethink your life choices. It’s absolutely worse than wanting to be a mime or a clown. Like, seriously, why would you dedicate your life to puppets?”

“Rex is not a puppet!” responds the rest of the table, sans Robbie.

Robbie sits there, mouth open, then quickly closes it in a huff.

“So… what brought on this, then?” Tori asks, quietly. “Because, again, not that I’m defending your life choices, not that you’ve felt the need to defend any of them. Like, absolutely none of them.”

“My Dad finally put his foot down and told me I have to keep Rex in my room, and I know it’s dumb because I’m sixteen and should be able to do what I want, but he’s been really weird since Mom left and he—” Robbie cut off, suddenly. “Well, he was just sick of having a weird kid.”

Cat looks at him, that blend of confused and concerned that only Cat can do. “It’s okay, Robbie my parents think I’m weird too. Well, not as weird as my brother. He flunked out of clown college. You could probably pass!” She beams, completely sincere.

And Robbie smiles back, even though he would definitely flunk out of clown college too. And puppet college. There’s a difference between puppeteering and ventriloquism, thank you very much! Give Robbie Kermit or Fozzie and he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

Tori butts in, changing the subject to herself. “Actually, speaking of siblings, Trina’s trying to put on one of her weird one-woman shows again, except she wants more actors this time.”

“Hold up, isn’t the point of a one-woman show that there’s like, only one woman in it?” Andre asks, “It can’t be called a one-woman show if there’s more than one woman in it. And some of them are men.”

“I don’t know! Trina just said that “it’s ‘reinventing the genre, the concept of a one-woman show, by having a bunch of different people play the same woman regardless of gender.’” Tori sighs. “Anyhow, seeing as how no one in this school will touch anything Trina works on, I was wondering if you all would be willing to audition for it.”

A chorus of “No’s” and “Absolutely not’s” come from the table, as they all know better than to work on anything with Trina unless forced to.

“Please guys? I’ll buy you all pizza. I’ll take you out to a nice dinner. My parents would probably pay for it, if it meant Trina would shut up about this show and stop terrorizing everyone she meets.”

“Well, I guess it’ll be something else to put on my resume,” Beck says, shrugging.

With Beck having joined in, the rest of them do, except Robbie.

“I’m sorry, I’m just not really comfortable,” he starts, trailing off as Jade cuts him off.

“What, do you have some sort of problem playing a woman? You slobber over them so much, you should have to be in this stupid play Trina’s putting on.”

“Haha, yeah,” Cat laughs, “You sure would make a funny woman Robbie! You’re already such a funny guy.” Her face goes contemplative. “Not like, funny funny. Just odd.”

Everyone looks in a direction that is pointedly not where Robbie is.

Robbie flushes.

Beck looks at him.

Robbie wishes he had Rex with him now, to make a crude joke, to break the tension in the air, maybe that way everyone would get off his back. But it's just Robbie, no puppet included.

Tori starts beginning. “Please, Robbie, it would really mean a lot to me! And Trina!”

Robbie caves, because Robbie always caves. “I— ugh— fine! Fine!”

“Yay! Thank you! Okay, so, I’ll let Trina know you’re all on board and hopefully we can get this many people one-woman show on the road.”

Everyone mumbles, openly unenthusiastic about having to work with Trina.

Jade’s eyes light up. “Hey, wait, Robbie, since you aren’t using your stupid puppet anymore, could I borrow it to use in a _ Night of the Living Dummy _ style film? I’ve been wanting to make one forever, but good ventriloquist dummies are surprisingly expensive, not that yours is great or anything. I’m not exactly drowning in options over here.”

“No! No, you cannot use Rex for your weird horror movies, he’s one of a kind!”

Jade just shrugs in response. “Well, it was worth a try.”

“I mean, if he got ruined, I don’t even know what I’d do.” Robbie wrings his hands together. “I still feel bad about leaving him at home, but if my Dad saw me leave the house with him, well…” he trails off, mumbling to himself, looking at the floor.

Everyone else at the table looks at one another, vaguely concerned looks on their faces.

After a few beats, the conversation at the table picks back up, Andre talking about a song he’s writing for Anthony’s class, full of “baby’s” and “you’re the only one for me’s” and “girls, girls, girls.”

Beck’s eyes are drilling a hole into Robbie, and Robbie pretends not to notice.

What feels like an eternity passes, with more inane conversation, and finally, mercifully, the bell rings. Robbie scrambles to get away from the table, and half-sprints away before the conversation even finishes.

Tori yells, “Wait, Robbie, we’re all going to the same class!” but doesn’t get up to go after him.

Jade scoffs. “Ugh, let him go, he’s clearly going through something. Who knows what’s going through his head.”

Beck gets up. “I’m gonna go talk to him, tell Sikowitz an acting emergency came up if he asks where we are.”

Clearly confused, Tori asks, “Acting… emergency?”

“Oh, yeah, if you ever need to get out of one of his classes, ‘acting emergency’ will always get you out. You just need a good enough story to be able to trick him into thinking you actually had an acting emergency,” Andre explains.

“You lie about your acting emergencies?” Cat asks, disappointed. “Whenever I have an acting emergency, I actually have one! Like last time, my brother was at this club in West Hollywood, and—”

Beck stands up, slamming his hands on the table. “Okay, as much as I would love to hear this story about your brother, Cat, I really should go talk to Robbie.”

Jade eyes up Beck. “Your loss, I guess.”

Beck ignores the comment, and runs off from the table.

After Beck leaves, Tori’s eyes go wide. “Oh no, we’re gonna be late to class too if we don’t hurry up!”

“When has Sikowitz ever cared about one of us being late?” Andre asks, “Or all of us being late, for that matter. It’s like he waits around for us to get to class before starting.”

“Well, maybe this will be the time he cares!”

Under her breath, Jade goes, “Oh, it definitely won’t be.”

* * *

The first place that Beck tries is the janitor’s closet, because that’s where everyone goes when they need to hide, and Robbie isn’t there. Just the janitor, who yells at Beck to “get out of the closet, you kids really shouldn’t be here!” Beck slowly walks backwards, out of the janitor’s closet, and starts wandering the halls. He reaches the music wing, and hears the general cacophony coming from the wing. A trumpet here, percussion there, people singing above it all. He’s peeking into rooms, and as he nears the end of the hall he starts to hear a familiar song. Robbie’s voice cuts above it all, singing his song about broken glass. He’s been workshopping it for months now, and Beck isn’t sure why because a children’s song about broken glass is never going to work but hey, Robbie also carries around a puppet.

“Oh, broken glass can’t help you pass, your friends make fun of you in class, you find yourself at an impasse. Challenging biology class, your soul breaks… like broken glass.”

God, Robbie really needs to stop workshopping the broken glass song, it gets worse every time. But at least Beck knows what’s wrong now, and he opens the door quietly, tentatively. “Rob, can I sit with you?”

Robbie sniffs, and mutters noises that sound like assent, so Beck sits next to him and Robbie puts his head on Beck’s shoulder. “I miss Rex.”  
“I know.” 

“I don’t know, it’s stupid that he’s some sort of security blanket for me, but he’s just always been what I couldn’t be.” Robbie sighs. “Like, I still only know my pants in girl sizes and I know that it just looks like I’m some weird guy who went shopping in the wrong section, but I figure if Rex is there to make fun of me, people will focus more on him and less on… me.” He closes his eyes, hands in head. “I mean, it’s been long enough, I should know my own pants size.”

Beck sits quietly, and he starts rubbing circles into Robbie’s back. “You know, I think it’s okay if you tell everyone. We go to a performing arts highschool. It’s not weird. You’re not weird! I mean, you are weird, but that’s more because of the puppet.”

“He’s not a puppet! Like, he’s more than just a dummy to me. You know that.”

Beck does know that, but he also knows that Robbie doesn’t really need Rex anymore. As a kid, Rex was a mouthpiece for everything Robbie couldn’t say, for all the language and words Robbie didn’t have at the time. Now that Robbie doesn’t need that barrier anymore, Rex mutated into the worst of what Robbie could have been.

“Yeah, but we all need to put our security blankets away eventually. There’s nothing wrong with growing up and moving on.” There’s a beat, and both boys are silent. “Though, it is fucked up that your dad just took him away from you like that.”

“My Dad said that if I was such a real man now, I wouldn't need Rex anymore. I mean, he’s been so supportive of me, but with my Mom and everything, he’s just been under a lot of stress and I guess Rex hasn’t really been helping with that. He’s embarrassed because he put all this energy into helping me be happy and I’m… not, really.”

“I think that being unhappy is just what happens when you’re sixteen, puppet or no puppet.”

“Can’t we just be twenty five and famous already?”

Becks looks incredulous. “Twenty five? We’ll be old men in Hollywood by twenty five! We have to be household names by twenty two or it’s over.”

“Well, now that I’m down one act, I have no clue how I’ll get famous by twenty two.”

“Maybe ‘Broken Glass’ by Robbie Shapiro will just really take off one day. You’ve been working on it long enough.”

“You really think so?”

“God no, you really need to scrap that one. I don’t know how you’ve been working on it as long as you have been.”

Robbie finally cracks a smile, and Beck grabs Robbie’s hand and pulls him up. “C’mon, let’s get to class. I told Andre to tell Sikowitz that there was an acting emergency, which wasn’t really a lie. Not that anyone else knows that.” Beck glances at the clock, and it’s about halfway through the period.

The acting wing is across the school, and neither boy drop each other’s hands as they walk through the school. The halls are empty and Robbie keeps looking down at Beck’s hand, as if he looks away for a minute Beck will let go.

After what feels like an eternity, they make it to Sikowitz’s room. When Beck and Robbie open the door and enter, Sikowitz stops mid sentence. “Ah, I see you’ve finished your acting emergency! Well, I for one would like to hear all about it.”

Everyone in the class turns around to look at Beck and Robbie, 12 pairs of eyes staring at them. Robbie is still visibly upset, and they’re still holding hands, Robbie squeezing Beck’s hand like its a lifeline.

“You know what? Nevermind! I don’t care that much about the problems of two teenage boys. Sit down.” He takes a long sip of coconut milk. “Let’s get back to talking about Trina’s many-person one-woman show!”

Beck finally drops Robbie’s hand and Robbie gives Beck’s hand one last glance as they go to sit down next to each other at the two open seats in the front. Jade’s eyes flit over to the two, and she smirks a little bit.

Sikowitz starts back up. “So, back to Trina’s many-person one-woman show! I’ve taught you all about the art of the one-man show. I’ve been in my fair share of them, and I think what Trina’s doing will truly revolutionize the genre! Good actors can save a bad show, and you are all mostly wonderful actors! Part of acting is about making the role yours, and if Tori has explained this correctly, you will all have a large part in making your many-person one-woman both unique and the same.”

Everyone’s eyes glaze over as Sikowitz continues to ramble on about one-woman and one-man shows.

Sikowitz claps his hands together. “Well! I think you all get the point now! Let’s try it out in class.” He covers his eyes and points “You!” he says, pointing to a mask in the back of the room. “And… You!” he says, pointing in the general direction that could be Robbie, or could be one of the quiet kids who sit in the back of the room and shrugs. 

Sikowitz uncovers his eyes. “So! Who did I point to?”

Robbie tentatively raises his hand. “Uh, you pointed to a mask. And maybe me?”

“Fantastic! I was definitely pointing to you! Grab that mask and get up here.”

Robbie grabs the mask that’s definitely too small for his face and gets up on stage. “What exactly do you want me to do up here?”

“Weren’t you listening to my monologuing about the one-woman show?”

“One-man show,” Robbie quickly corrects. “And no, not really.”

“Well! Just start acting! But be yourself! Act like yourself!”

Robbie’s eyes start to dart around the room, anxious, stammering.

Mercifully, the bell rings and Robbie speed-walks off the stage.

Andre laughs. “I’ve never seen you sweat that hard onstage! Normally you sweat, but it’s like, a different kind of sweat.”

The group starts filling out the door, walking down the hall.

“It’s okay, Robbie,” Tori tries to commiserate. “That was a stupid assignment anyhow. How do you pretend to be yourself? You either are yourself or you aren’t! There’s no acting involved! You just… be yourself.”

Jade scoffs. “Tori, you’re telling this to a guy who carries around a puppet with him everywhere.”

“But Rex is just a character Robbie came up with…” Jade raises an eyebrow in response. “Oh. Oh! That’s what we need to do with the one woman show! We need to get Robbie to realize that he doesn’t need his puppet at Tori’s play!”

Robbie pipes up. “You know I’m right here, right?”

“Yeah, we didn’t ask you, did we?” Jade snaps.

Tori claps her hands.“This many-person one-woman show will be great for you, Robbie! It’ll let you get in touch with yourself and the many facets of your personality! Some self reflection will be good for you!”

Beck snorts, and Robbie elbows him.

“Well, I have to get to math, which is uh, down that hallway, so I’ll be heading down that hallways,” and Robbie turns down the hallway, walking to remedial Algebra II.

The minute that Robbie walks into the classroom, Tori tugs Andre on the arm. “Guys, we need to help Robbie! We need to help him self-actualize!”

Beck laughs, and can’t help but answer. “I… don’t think Robbie needs any help with that, Tori.”

Everyone that isn’t Beck starts agreeing with Tori, that Robbie does need help, and that Trina’s many-person one-woman show is the perfect way to get Robbie to better understand himself.

“Well, I need to get to Cinema Production, so good luck figuring that one out, guys.” With that, Beck walks towards the film wing, leaving Tori, Jade, Andre, and Cat to stare at one another, confused.

* * *

After school gets out, Tori herds everyone to her house. Outside the door, she stops everyone. “Okay, I know none of you want to be here, so the faster we can figure out what Trina wants, the faster we can put the show on and be done with this. And uh, the house looks a little bit different than it usually does.”

“Can you just let us in?” Jade asks.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

As they file into the house, it becomes immediately apparent why Tori needed to warn everyone before coming in. The Vega living room can only be called “Trina-themed,” cutouts, photos, glitter, streamers, gaudy in a way that only Trina could be.

Once inside, everyone’s eyes go wide. Jade’s the first to speak. “Oh my god. Your parents let Trina do this?”

“Well,” Tori rebuts, “My parents have trouble stopping Trina from doing what she wants. Actually, it’s almost impossible to stop Trina from doing what she wants, if you haven’t noticed yet.”

Andre takes a seat at the couch, regular throw pillows replaced by ones with Trina’s face on them. “Oh, we’ve noticed.”

Trina runs downstairs, shouting. “Hi Tori’s friends! Thank you all for being in my play, I’m so excited for you all to play the role of the “woman” in my one-woman show! Okay, so, sit down and shut up so I can tell you all about it.”

Everyone sits down and shuts up while Trina stands in front of them, wildly gesticulating as she explains the plot. “Here’s the plot: it’s about a thirty seven year old businesswoman… she’s fallen in and out of love, rose up the ranks at her job, and she’s currently between boyfriends and she feels so empty inside. Nothing can fill the void in her heart, and she’s just coming to terms with what it is. It’s not a man, she’s thirty seven, so she’s okay with not being married,” Trina pretends to gag, “and it’s not her job: she loves being at Corporation Co., doing whatever it is that people in boring office jobs do, but there’s just something nagging at her, something that lets her know that her life will never be complete.”

She stops, waiting for a reaction.

“Why does she feel empty, Trina?” Jade asks, voice dull.

Trina grins. “It’s all because… she can’t ride a bike! She’s gotten her driver’s license, she knows how to ice skate, and roller skate, and roller blade, she’s even got her motorcycle license— but the mysteries of a bike have forever eluded her.”

Everyone turns to look at Robbie.

“And you’re all the parts of her personality that are explaining why she needs to learn how to ride a bike: the freedom, the wind in her hair, the cute boy who loves to bike and she’d love to ride tandem with him. But then there’s the parts that tell her why riding a bike just isn’t worth it. That’s she’s better off without a bike, that she doesn’t need to learn how to ride a bike for a man…”

Trina’s arms are flying by this point. “And at the end she realizes that she doesn’t need to learn a bike for a man, she needs to learn to ride a bike for herself and nobody else! The big ending song is the various facets of her personality coming together and riding on the world’s longest tandem bike. I’m going to re-invent and reinvigorate the genre of the one-woman show by having it star more than one woman!”

Trina explodes in excitement, proudly gesturing to the multitude of posters with her own face on them. On the couch, everyone is silent, trying to take in what Trina just explained.

Robbie shoots up, trying to scramble away from the couch, but Jade grabs his shirt and yanks him back on the couch as hard as she can. Jade glares at Robbie, and does her Tori impression as she scolds, “Robbie, you can’t leave, you have to get self-actualized!”

“I do not sound like that!” Tori snaps, “and yes, Robbie, you do have to get self-actualized, and you’re just like the woman who needs to learn how to ride a bike!”

Openly upset, Robbie half-yells back, “I’m obviously not!”

Cat grins, leaning over to pat him on the shoulder. “You learned how to ride a bike, Robbie? Oh, we’re all so proud of you!”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s what he’s upset about, Cat,” Beck chimes in.

Cat blinks. “Oh, he’s upset because he got called a girl! There’s nothing wrong with being a girl, Robbie! I love being a girl! I get to keep candy in my bra!” She giggles and grins, pulling a gummy shark out of her bra and taking a bite out of it.

Robbie is not grinning wide back at Cat. He looks like a deer in the headlights, and stands up, ramrod straight. “I can’t be here. I can’t do this.”

He speedwalks out the door, and everyone in the Vega house sits, stunned.

Jade scoffs, “God, who got sand in his vagina?”

Everyone turns to face Jade, not responding to her question.

“What? I don’t see what the big deal is about Robbie playing the subconscious of a woman who can’t ride a bike! It’s not like Beck or Andre are complaining about this.”

“I wouldn’t say that I’m not complaining,” Andre points out, “and Robbie does have a lot of issues, specifically surrounding women.”

The rest of the group mumbles to themselves about the fact that yeah, Robbie does have a lot of issues surrounding women, specifically about how creepy he and Rex are towards them.

“Um, I’m gonna go check on Robbie,” Beck says, “He couldn’t have gotten too far, he’s probably just walking lost down the block.” He gets up off the couch and walks out the door.

“Why would Beck go look for Robbie? Wouldn’t it be better to give Robbie some time to himself?” Tori asks. Everyone stares at her like she’s grown another head. “What? What did I ask? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

The first person to answer is Andre, and all he can say is, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Look, Tori, if you can’t figure it out, it’s really not our place to tell you,” Jade says, “But let me assure you that Beck and I will not be getting back together.”  
Tori is silent, puzzled look still on her face, and it’s Cat that responds instead. “Oh, that makes so much more sense as to why they walked into Sikowitz’s class holding hands!”

Tori holds up a hand. “Wait. They walked into class holding hands? Why would they walk into Sikowitz’s class holding hands?”

Everyone else groans.

Jade gets up. “Okay, I’m done. I have to go… wash my car.”

Cat gets a puzzled look on her face. “Jade, Beck drove you here! How are you gonna get home to wash your car when your car isn’t even here!”

“I was lying, Cat. I was making a bold-faced lie because I don’t want to be here while Tori has an epiphany over what ‘Performing Arts Highschool’ means, and I was ready to walk home in the dark.”

Cat agrees while shaking her head no. “I don’t want to be here for that either! That sounds like a very bad time, the Tori thing and the walking home thing.”

“Oh, you two don’t have to walk home,” Andre says, starting to get off the couch. “I can give you a ride home, if you don’t mind stopping by the 24 hour drugstore first so I can pick up a prescription for my grandma.”

“Yeah, fine, I just want to be anywhere but here. I’ll buy a juice while we’re there, or something.”

Cat’s face lights up. “I love juice! Jade, will you buy me an apple juice?”

“Yeah, sure, I can buy you an apple juice.”

The three of them shuffle out, Trina sitting on the couch and Tori waving her friends goodbye as they leave. After they're gone, Tori turns around to face Trina. “Is no one going to tell me what’s going around here?”

“Listen, little sister, if you can’t figure out what’s going on, you should not be at Hollywood Arts. Not to agree with anything Jade says, because ew, but you do need to do some self-ephiphanizing.”

“I don’t need to do any ‘ephiphanizing!’ I just don’t understand what everyone is going on about, with Robbie’s thing and the Robbie and Beck thing, and with the breakup between Jade and Robbie and— oh. Oh!”

Trina nods. “Ephiphanzing.”

More confused than when she started, Tori starts to stammer. “But, Robbie is so— and Beck is— and Jade—”

“Look, Tori, I know you’ve just realized something that changes the way that you view like, half of your friend group, but you also hang out with the five freakiest kids at Hollywood Arts so I don’t really know what you were expecting.” Trina pats Tori’s shoulder. “I have to go edit so much of my script now because every time I think your friends can’t get weirder, they do! It’s kind of admirable!”

Trina flounces up the stairs, and Tori is left alone on the couch, still muttering to herself.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote 4k of victorious fanfic in less than 24 hours after having binged the show for oh, a week straight, instead of doing my research paper. i am 21 years old. but sometimes you project on robbie shapiro, and thus is life. id like to thank my roommate for having to listen to me write this and also giving me the idea for the plot of the one woman show.
> 
> tags subject to change, if i end up writing the second chapter! title taken from the tiger trap song!


End file.
